their technology has caught up with ours, they may then achieve a superiority in overall deliverable warheads that might be politically, if not strategically— intolerable to us. EFFECTS OF ACTION OF SOVIET UNION IN PHASE II My question is this: Would you think that phase II and the action the Soviet Union may take in phase II and that we take may tell more accurately the story of whether these agreements are a step toward control of these weapons or their proliferation? Senator BUCKLEY. I think, Senator Cooper, it may depend entirely or to a very significant extent on our relative postures toward the end of the five-year period envisaged in the Interim Agreement. If we have failed to move ahead, as the President has recommended, we may find ourselves in a position of actual or almost immediate inferiority from which we cannot catch up, at which time we might find the Soviet Union very intransigent, the Soviet Union working not to achieve what I believe is necessary in SALT II, namely, beginning with assured parity on a payload capacity and then peeling back the weapons, so we reduce, constantly reduce, this awful threat to humanity. They might, in the alternative, use their existing strength and their continuing capacity to tool up and start building still more submarines and still deploying still added numbers of missiles to cause us to agree to a position where they would have a permanent superiority as the price for not for both sides not continuing to spend still more money, at which point the political implications would be most serious. Senator COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. COMMENDATION OF WITNESS I want to repeat again, I think your statement, while I don't agree with your position on ABM, nevertheless I think it is a very intelligent, thoughtful statement and one in which you raised, as I look back through these years, practically every question of what must have been considered in these negotiations. Senator BUCKLEY. Thank you, Senator. Senator COOPER. And the questions that lie ahead. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Buckley. The next witness is our former colleague, Senator Joseph Clark. We are very pleased to have you, Senator Clark. STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH CLARK, FORMER U.S. SENATOR, CHAIRMAN OF THE COALITION ON NATIONAL PRIORITIES AND MILITARY POLICY Mr. CLARK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am grateful to you and the members of the committee for giving the Coalition this opportunity to testify and I believe I can save the committee some time if my statement is placed in full in the record. The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Mr. CLARK. Then I will ad lib from it. The CHAIRMAN. Put the entire statement in and you can emphasize those points you wish to make. Mr. CLARK. Thank you, sir. APPROVAL OF ABM TREATY AND INTERIM AGREEMENT RECOMMENDED The Coalition believes both the ABM Treaty and the Interim Agreement on Offensive Weapons should be approved by this committee and we make this recommendation despite the belief that in many ways both agreements are frauds on the American and Russian people perpetrated by the military leaders of both countries. ABM UNLIKELY TO WORK UNDER BATTLE CONDITIONS The ABM Agreement is a fraud because the military leaders of both countries know that the ABM will in all likelihood not work under battle conditions. The billions the Russians have spent on their ABM around Moscow have been wasted; so have the billions we have spent in Montana and in North Dakota. The basic inadequacy of the ABM was first called to the attention of the American public in 1967 in a series of papers written by outstanding scholars and scientists under the title "Debate to ABM" brought together by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. This was followed by a volume which received even greater attention when published in 1969, under the title, "ABM-an Evaluation of the Decision to Deploy an Antiballistic Missile System", in which 17 knowledgeable scientists, former Defense Department executives and public figures, including Senator Edward Kennedy, who testified this morning, came to the conclusion stated above: That is, the ABM would not work; and more than that, it will not turn the arms race downward. It is not too much to say that every prominent American scientist not directly or indirectly in the pay of the Pentagon shares this view. It is devoutly to be hoped that the Congress will not permit the Defense Department to squander more billions in the building of a useless ABM ring around Washington. The fact of the matter is that the ABM was obsolete before the first one was deployed. INTERIM AGREEMENT DOES NOT TURN ARMS RACE DOWNWARD Similarly, the Interim Agreement respecting Strategic Offensive Arms does not turn the arms race downward. In fact, if one is to believe President Nixon and Secretary Laird, the Russians intend to go full speed ahead with further massive research, development, testing, and deployment of even more lethal nuclear weapons and delivery systems. We are told that in the interests of national security we must follow suit, so under these agreements the arms race will accelerate, not cool off. SALT AGREEMENTS COULD USHER IN ERA OF GOOD FEELING Why, then, you will naturally ask does the Coalition recommend approval of these exceptionally ridiculous agreements? The answer lies in our hope that the very real public relations triumph which the President achieved in Moscow could conceivably be turned into a solid start to a wide-ranging détente with the Soviet Union; and on such a détente the peace of the world may well depend. If we can only keep our Cold Warriors quiet in the Congress and the Pentagon, the SALT agreements could usher in an era of good feeling which could bring the arms race to an end within the foreseeable future. So the years of shadowboxing at SALT can be turned to good advantage if this committee recommends the ratification of these two agreements without exploring too deeply their essential unimportance in and of themselves. IMPACT OF RATIFICATION OF AGREEMENTS ON FY 1973 DOD BUDGET Two main questions remain: First, what impact should ratification of the agreements have on the 1973 fiscal year Department of Defense budget; and, second, where should the United States go from here in terms of further arms control and disarmament negotiations, not only with the Russians but also with all other nations having significant armed forces. The answer to the first question, in our opinion, is easy: Under no circumstances should Mr. Laird be permitted to use his requested increases in the budget for new or improved nuclear weapon systems or warheads as a "bargaining chip" in the congressional debate on ratification of the SALT agreements. There is no legitimate excuse for increased expenditures on nuclear weaponry; in fact, our strategic nuclear arsenal should be cut, not expanded. In the debate on this treaty, one sees very little reference to the overkill that each side has. There is no reason to increase it. It would be folly to do so. President Nixon says that Chairman Brezhnev told him the Russians are going full speed ahead with further nuclear research, development, testing, and deployment within the limits set by the treaty. If this should turn out to be true, the answer should be, "Well, let him." If the Russians want to waste billions on this kind of folly, that is their business. It is no reason for our following suit. As long as we have at least 800 nuclear warheads on our invulnerable submarines, we have no occasion to provide more. At present we have 5,700 warheads overall compared to their 2,500; that is many times more than enough. If a nuclear strike were required, the 800 warheads could destroy civilization in the Soviet Union many times over. I call to the attention of the committee the June 30 issue of the Defense Monitor published by the Center for Defense Information of which Rear Adm. Gene La Rocque is the director. I would like your permission to place it in the record. Parenthetically, the Center for Defense Information clings wisely to its tax exemption as a research and educational group and, therefore, they can't lobby by appearing before you. However, we are pleased to call your attention to the excellent work being done by Admiral La Rocque and his staff of defense experts. (The information referred to follows:) *Depending on whether old ICBMs are dismantled and replaced by SLBMs. ** To reach these levels US would have to dismantle 54 old Titan ICBMS; USSR would have to dismantle 210 program to greatly expand the destructive power of its strategic bombers by equipping them with short range attack missiles (SRAM). Together these steps would increase the US strategic nuclear warhead and bomb total from about 5700 in 1972 to more than 10,000 in 1976. On top of this the United States was developing a new strategic submarine called Trident, with new missiles to go with it, and a new strategic bomber, the B-1. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was building new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers at a rate of 250 per year. These included silos for the huge SS9 missile, capable of carrying 25 megatons (a US Minuteman II carries about 1 to 2 megatons). The Soviets had dug 25 silos possibly for a new missile even larger than the SS9. They were building new nuclear-powered strategic ballistic missile submarines at a rate of 7 to 9 per year, and could at this rate have twice as many such submarines as the United States in five years. The Russians were, however, years behind in MIRV. They were working on MIRV technology but had yet to test what US technicians considered to be a MIRV system. Thus, the two superpowers were running their nuclear race in different ways. The United States was concentrating on MIRV, while holding its missile totals constant and reducing megatons. The Soviet Union was increasing numbers of missile launchers and deploying larger vehicles to carry fewer warheads but with greater megatonnage. Both sides were developing anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems. For the question "Who's ahead?" there were as many answers as there were ways to measure the strategic arms balance. In numbers of ICBM launchers, the Soviet Union had come from behind and passed the United States. In numbers of submarine missile launch tubes the Soviets were catching up, and would in a few years pass the United States. In numbers of heavy bombers the United States had a 3 to 1 lead. In numbers of separately targetable nuclear weapons, the United States had a 2 to 1 lead, and because of this country's head start in MIRV, this lead was rapidly widening in favor of the United States. In total megatons the Soviets had about a 2 or 3 to 1 lead. When all these measures were considered together the Soviet Union clearly had come from a position of nuclear inferiority at the time of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis to a position which many weapons experts saw as parity, and which some viewed with alarm as indicating future Soviet superiority unless the United States speeded up its weapons programs. THE ACCORDS The SALT accords consist of a treaty limiting ABMs, a five-year Interim Agreement which puts certain partial limits on offensive weapons development pending further arms talks, a protocol to this Interim Agreement, and a number of statements of "interpretation" some agreed and some unilateral. Based on all these documents, the following is a summary of the main provisions of the accords: ABM Treaty Each country agrees not to build an ABM system for defense of its entire territory or major region. This amounts to a pledge that neither will try to upset the present deterrent balance by deploying ABMS to protect its general population and industry. Each will limit ABM systems to two sites-one in defense of its national capital, the other in defense of an ICBM field. These must be at least 1300 kilometers (800 miles) apart, which means the Soviet ICBM field to be protected must be east of the Ural Mountains, away from the major western USSR population centers. No more than 100 ABM launchers and 100 intercepter missiles may be deployed at each site. Restrictions are set on numbers, types and placement of ABM radars to foreclose a radar capability for nationwide defense of either country. In addition to these basic provisions, the two countries agree to ban sea-based, air-based, space-based or mobile land-based ABMs; not to deploy ABM systems of new kinds without prior discussion; not to convert air-defense or other systems to an ABM role; not to build radars for early warning of strategic ballistic missiles except along the edges of the country facing out; not to transfer ABM systems to other states or deploy them overseas. There is no on-site inspection. Each side will use its own technical means of verification and each pledges not to interfere with these means or resort to deliberate concealment. A Standing Consultative Commission will be established to implement the treaty and consider questions involving it. The ABM treaty is of unlimited duration but either side can withdraw for supreme interest. The treaty would require the United States to cut back its 12-site ABM program (of which four sites have been approved by Congress) to a maximum of 2. The Administration plans to complete the ABM site on which construction is farthest ahead-at the ICBM field at Grand Forks, N.D. It will halt work on three other sites at ICBM fields and has asked Congress to approve an ABM site at Washington, D.C. The treaty permits Russia to continue its ABM site already under construction at Moscow and to start a second site at an ICBM field. Interim Agreement and Protocol These deal with offensive nuclear weapons. In general they limit the numbers of ICBMs, ballistic missile sub |